Transcript: Casting Angles with Mac Brown
S5, Ep 137: Casting Angles with Mac Brown
2023, Marvin S. Cash
The Articulate Fly
http://www.thearticulatefly.com
Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly and we're back with another casting angles with Mack Brown. How you doing Mack?
Mac:
[0:12] I'm doing great. How you doing Marvin?
Marvin:
[0:14] As always, Mack just trying to stay out of trouble and, uh, you know, took a look at your weather and you're probably, you're still dry, but you're a little bit, uh, maybe slightly unseasonably warm.
Uh, what are you seeing out on the wild trout streams?
Mac:
[0:28] We still have a lot of midges and a whole lot of bluing olives, pretty consistent, and we had a lot of cloudy weather Friday, Saturday, and we're supposed to get all the rain. We didn't get a lot of rain.
Maybe Friday, we got just enough to wet the windshield, and that was it.
And then Saturday, we had maybe an hour of really light, not even a rain, more like a heavy mist, you know, just enough to make things wet, like the car windshield wet, but not enough to say it was a tenth of an inch or anything like that.
So those cloudy days produced a lot more blue wings, and I think tomorrow was supposed to be cloudy like that again too, so it'll probably be the same thing. A lot of midge activity.
The DH was, at least in Tukisegi, I mean all of them in this part of the state have already been their second stocking in November.
So those have been really, really good for teaching whatever technique, you know, somebody wants to work on and he could dry fly.
We did one, one day of all dry fly, you know, on a trip Saturday and we've done a lot of wet fly and we've done a lot of real small nymphs.
So it doesn't really, I mean, right now it's like fair game to do whatever you want to work on.
Marvin:
[1:47] Yeah. So I'd imagine on the DH, right. If you haven't gotten any water, the fish are pretty potted up and to your point, if you've got new fish, a great time for anglers to go out to work on something because there's going to be a little bit of a margin for error because those fish aren't going to be as picky as they will be after they've been in the water for two or three months.
Mac:
[2:04] That's right. Right now, yeah, it was really good for trips last week and over the weekend.
I think it just makes it easy. You can ask people, hey, what is it you want to do?
And if they tell you what technique they're wanting to learn, you can actually do it, get good results with any of the techniques that exist right now.
Another couple of weeks, that'll change. They'll start figuring out the blue wing game and the midge game, and then those fish will be like the ones that were put in, in October.
Marvin:
[2:36] And I would imagine too, that, that, you know, the wild stream fishing is probably pretty technical.
So, you know, I would say that probably means really long leaders be really stealthy and that means probably staying out of the water as much as you possibly can.
Mac:
[2:51] Yeah, that'd be really good advice just to try to fish further away.
I think there's a big part of it and a big part of fishing further away, you lengthening out the liter like we talked about quite a bit with you is just such an advantage like it's so much harder for folks to have like the normal store -bought seven and a half foot, nine foot liter. That's just way too short.
That won't fly with this water level. It needs to be much greater than that.
Marvin:
[3:25] Yeah and also too probably a good time to kind of remind people about the rule of six and that, you know, even if you have more distance, you really, the best thing you can do is to basically try to sidearm cast to kind of stay out of that cone of the trout's vision, right?
Mac:
[3:39] Yeah, horizontal casts work great. And, uh, and I think that's a, you know, you can still roll cast horizontal and stuff too, but, um, I just think that that leads to a lot of advantages.
I've been going up there, hiking a lot after, after work. And when I get done at the end of the day, I've been on deep Creek every day for the last 10 days.
And just doing hikes in the evening. And I see a lot of people that are up there, you know, in the lower stretches of Deep Creek.
And the biggest thing I would say is just from, you know, I didn't talk to them.
I mean, I was just up there to hike.
But everyone I've seen has been fishing out less than a rod length away.
And I could bet money that's not producing anything for them.
Because it's too low, too clear. You can't fish a rod length away in this type of water. There's not a lot of rapids or riffles or anything like that.
It's really low and clear everywhere, you know.
Marvin:
[4:32] Yeah.
Mac:
[4:33] So, that would backfire. I'm sure they spook the fish as soon as they move their hand, you know.
Marvin:
[4:38] Yeah. And so, the other thing too in your part of the world is we come up on Thanksgiving.
You're going to have a lot of people kind of, you know, tourists passing through your neck of the woods for the holiday.
And, you know, the big trick is if you want to get out and fish, you know, what are your suggestions to help folks avoid the crowds?
Mac:
[4:55] To avoid the crowds, I would say, I would go explore some off the beaten path stuff, I mean like 20 Mile Creek that feeds into Chihuahua.
There's so many, I'm not just saying that one, there's hundreds of 20 Mile Creeks in this area, but I would say get off the beaten path, you know, instead of a D -H, because those fish out of the lakes are running up this time of year.
This is a fantastic time, like Snowbird, Santila Creek, Chihuahua River, all these All these creeks that feed into these impoundments have wild fish in the lake that are going up, and this is one of the better times of year to go in there and see, you know, large rainbow and browns both coming up out of those lakes.
And so that's what I would do. If I had a day off, take my kids, but now they're in school, but I mean, if I had like maybe this weekend, I'll actually do that.
Just take them into one of the miles of these creeks and work up in the first couple miles of those creeks that feed the impoundments.
That's where the better fishing as far as quality wild fish.
Marvin:
[5:56] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate fly.
You can email them or DM us on social media, whatever's easiest for you.
And we love answering your questions. Last time we were talking about leaders, you sent in a bunch of questions. That was really awesome. But keep them coming.
We do this for you guys to help your time on the water, particularly in Western North Carolina, be more productive.
And, you know, Mack, before I let you go, you want to let folks know where they can find you if they want to kind of get on your guide calendar.
And I know you've got a busy show circuit coming up too.
Mac:
[6:26] Yeah, just mackbrownflyfish .com or Facebook or Instagram, Mack Brown Fly Fish.
And the other, the other show, since I talked to you, is it's going to be the Midwest fly fishing show up in, up in Michigan.
And, um, we decided last week, we're going to go ahead and go up there and do that. That's in the first week and a, I think week and a half or so of March.
And I don't remember the date to be honest, but just type in Midwest Fly Fishing.
So I'm looking forward to that.
It's gonna have my buddy, Michael Marey there, Phil Rowley, Alice Owsley, that'll be a fun bunch. I'm looking forward to going up there to Michigan.
Marvin:
[7:05] Yeah, they're all great folks too. And also, you know, stay tuned right around, right after the holidays, keep your eye on our social media feeds because Mac and I are gonna be dropping some online classes.
So if you can't get to Mac in person on the show circuit, we have an opportunity for you to benefit from his vast casting knowledge online.
So keep an eye out for that. And I want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving, Mac.
Mac:
[7:32] Happy Thanksgiving to you and to everybody out there.
Marvin:
[7:35] Tight lines, everybody.
Mac:
[7:37] Tight lines, Marvin.